Brandon Kazen-Maddox has at all times felt an affinity with mermaids.
“We each straddle two worlds,” mentioned Mx. Kazen-Maddox, 36, an American Signal Language dancer, choreographer and filmmaker who’s nonbinary and makes use of they/them pronouns.
Mx. Kazen-Maddox, like each their dad and mom, is listening to. However they grew up residing with their mom at her dad and mom’ dwelling in Washington State, the place their maternal grandparents, each of whom are deaf, spoke with their palms.
Quickly, Mx. Kazen-Maddox discovered to do the identical. “I wish to say my phrases are simply alongside for the trip,” they mentioned.
Mx. Kazen-Maddox has been decoding professionally since 2012 and has labored on the Broadway manufacturing of “Aladdin” and for former President Joe Biden, the composer Lin-Manuel Miranda and the actress Marlee Matlin.
In a half-hour PBS particular scheduled for Tuesday, “SOUL(SIGNS): Making Music Seen,” Mx. Kazen-Maddox documented the method of choreographing, filming and performing an A.S.L. music video for Morgan James’s “Drown,” shedding mild on their very own relationship with music and signal language.
“I see numerous A.S.L. as an afterthought or interpretation simply thrown in,” they mentioned, “and it finally ends up not doing service to the Deaf group.”
In 2020, Mx. Kazen-Maddox began the Up Till Now Collective with Kevin Newbury, a director and Mx. Kazen-Maddox’s associate of 5 years, and Jecca Barry, a producer. The collective, whose initiatives embody “SOUL (SIGNS),” has a multidisciplinary concentrate on inclusive storytelling.
As an individual who yo-yos between numerous initiatives, Mx. Kazen-Maddox loves having a house base in a comfy duplex on the Higher West Facet of Manhattan alongside the Hudson River, the place they reside with Mr. Newbury, 47, and greater than a dozen vegetation.
“My Sunday is basically 5 lives in a day,” they mentioned.
SUN, SUN, SUN HERE IT COMES I get up at 8 a.m. I strive my hardest to not use an alarm. I simply suppose it’s more healthy. Typically I’ll fall asleep with the home windows open so I get up to the solar.
SOUL SESSION I wish to placed on Spotify and play therapeutic, meditative sound bowls once I’m within the bathe. It’s a pleasant approach to get in tune with my very own spirituality and be grounded. Then I’ll activate one thing like “The Telepathy Tapes” by Ky Dickens — data that feeds my soul and my curiosity for the universe.
GOING GREEN I’ll drink a smoothie or eat a pitaya bowl from Cool Contemporary Juice Bar on the Higher West Facet. Then I water my vegetation with my associate, Kevin — we’re plant daddies — and that jogs my memory to be grounded and take care of the earth. We have now 16, so it takes about half an hour.
MEDITATION AND MUD Round 9:30 a.m., I’ll both take the prepare or leap within the automotive down the F.D.R. to the Russian & Turkish Baths within the East Village, the place I spend a superb 4 hours, at the very least, engaged on my physique, thoughts and spirit. The baths are so particular as a result of they’re my Hazard Room, in X-Males parlance — they assist me observe the extremes.
I’ll go within the Russian room, which is like 160 levels — it’s intense. And the hammam, the steam room, is that this place the place there’s humidity. I deliver my oils; I’ll put lavender within the air and peppermint and can breathe them collectively. It’s so good to your pores and skin, your lungs and any opening to your physique.
Once I can afford it, I get a collection of remedies: a mud therapeutic massage with mud from Israel, a salt scrub and a cleaning soap wash. After they apply the mud, they let it dry for 15 to twenty minutes, throughout which era I meditate.
STRETCH IT OUT Then I do the dry sauna, the place I’ll stretch my splits, my again and my shoulders. That retains my dance alive, and it’s meditative. And it’s a little bit little bit of a show of, like, care for your physique, everyone. I additionally love the chilly plunge as a result of, once I go in, I take into consideration what it feels wish to be in outer house, and what it feels wish to be on the backside of the ocean.
A SHOP THAT ROCKS I pop into one in all my favourite shops, Crystals Backyard, which is throughout the road from the baths. They’ve dream catchers, incense, vegetation and an entire slew of crystals and rocks and handmade issues. It’s a superb place to seek out items to ship to household or buddies.
FOOD MODE I’m going to Joe & Pat’s, which is simply across the nook, and order a cauliflower crust pizza. They’ve this wonderful broccoli rabe, and I put that on the pizza, which is pink sauce and pepperoni. After which I put their tacky Alfredo sauce on prime of all of it. I can eat your complete factor after a morning on the baths, and it makes me really feel actually nice as a result of it’s cauliflower crust and wheat free.
Or I would go to this Japanese place referred to as Ramen Takumi, which is on the northeast nook of Washington Sq. Park. The Steinhardt roll is my favourite. I really like that space, which could be very a lot a house base for me — once I was in school at N.Y.U., I’d at all times be round Washington Sq. Park and strolling via the Village. Additionally they have cool comedian ebook stuff on the partitions.
Typically, Kevin and Jecca will come and meet me, and we’ll speak about one thing we’re doing with Up Till Now Collective.
SIGN CHECK At 2 p.m., I head to Membership Cumming for a rehearsal for a efficiency we’re doing on April 15, the day my PBS particular airs. We’re going to have a public screening of “SOUL(SIGNS).” Then we’re making a present referred to as “SOUL(SIGNS): 3X3X3” which is all about Nina Simone’s music. I’m asking three Black soul jazz singers to every decide a Nina Simone tune to sing, after which I might be signing, and the jazz pianist Lance Horne might be taking part in on keys. And I’m going to work with a deaf director of inventive signal language, Patrice Creamer, to translate all three of those songs from my perspective and along with her steering. I’m so excited.
AERIAL ARTS It’s on to a different rehearsal at 4 p.m., this one at One Day One in Dumbo with my aerial hoop coach, New York Cat. I began writing a theatrical manufacturing of American Signal Language dance theater referred to as (FREEDOM), which is mainly my story: It’s a couple of Black queer youngster raised in a white deaf household. I needed so as to add a component that might maintain my physique actually sturdy, which is an aerial hoop, and I had by no means seen anybody do American Signal Language in an aerial hoop earlier than. So I used to be like, effectively, let’s do this!
NEIGHBORHOOD NOSH I get dwelling round 6:30 and prepare dinner dinner with meals that Kevin picked up from Westside Market, our favourite market. Their Portuguese kale soup is phenomenal.
MOVIE NIGHT Kevin and I wind down by watching a film really helpful by “The Queer Movie Information” by Kyle Turner. It’s this cool ebook that goes via all these films that you could be or could not have thought have something to do with queerness — like “The Fly,” for instance. Who knew? If it’s good, we’ll deliver our projector up and watch it upstairs on the roof.
CUDDLE TIME After the film, Kevin and I’ll cuddle up subsequent to one another and browse our books. Proper now, I’m studying “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros, and it’s so good. These are the sorts of books that I really like, fantasy with blends of sturdy actuality. I’m an enormous believer that what makes it into our unconscious units our temper. So I attempt to ensure that no matter I’m listening to earlier than mattress is constructive and joyful, or fascinating and fantastical, in order that it impacts my goals.
